Objects and Museums: Biographies, Narratives and Identity Bonds

Call for Papers MIDAS issue 8

Casa da Memria/Contextil 2014/Guimares. August 2014 Paulo Duarte

MIDAS Museum Interdisciplinary Studies is launching a call for papers for

issue 8 for publication in June 2017. This issue is a thematic dossier under the
theme Objects and Museums: Biographies, Narratives and Identity Bonds with
Alice Semedo (University of Porto), Olaia Fontal (University of Valladolid) e Alex
Ibanez (University of the Basque Country) as guest editors.

All accepted articles will undergo a double peer-review. Articles should not
exceed 6 000 words (without bibliography) or ca. 40 000 characters (with
spaces). It must follow the classical structure of an academic paper. Articles
should include abstract, keywords and the biography of the author(s). More
information at: http://midas.revues.org/390?lang=en

Deadline: March 15th, 2017. Send your text to: revistamidas@gmail.com

Note: In March de 2017 MIDAS launches a new call for papers for issue 9
(Varia) for publication in 2017 and a call for papers for proposals for thematic
issues (for publication 2018).

Objects and Museums: Biographies, Narratives and Identity Bonds

Objects are returning to contemporary social theory with renewed strength.
Whether it be in the form of commodities, communication technologies, artwork
or even urban spaces, a new world of materiality and objectivity is now
emerging with a sense of urgency that transforms them into new places for
questioning and reflection. While the most radical poststructuralist and
constructivist views tended to liquefy everything solid, today it is precisely the
solidity that surrounds us which captures our attention and leads us, for
example, to focus on the sensory immediacy of the objects we live, work and
speak with the objects we love and hate. Materiality thus regains a central
position in the museological and heritage-related discourse and practice, which
in this way are constantly re-imagining what constitutes such materiality.

Several approaches within the spheres of Museology, anthropology, geography,

material culture, science and technology studies, design, sociology of
consumerism and culture to name but a few point towards an
understanding of the performative and integrative capacity of objects in helping
build that which we call society. New approaches related to material and visual
culture, the study of artefacts and the collections of interwoven narratives
regard the museum as a laboratory, and museum collections as research
technology. Major interdisciplinary projects resort to collections as a means to
approaching broader questions concerning art, culture, history or even the
environment. Methods drawn from the field of literary studies, for example, are
used to design approaches for the analysis of objects of memory that reveal a
hunger for new ways of questioning and tackling these issues. Such an
approach closer to literary discourse becomes more evident in many
recently published works, including A History of the World in 100 Objects
(MacGregor 2014), The Hare with Amber Eyes (De Waal 2010), Evocative
Objects: Things We Think With (Turkle 2007), Paraphernalia: The Curious Life
of Magical Things (Connor 2011), Cod A Biography of the Fish That Changed
the World (Kurlansky 2003) or Biographies of Scientific Objects (Daston 2000).
Applying the biographic approach to objects raises important methodological
questions concerning their narrative, structure and chronology, the
representation of change, their influence on the lives of humans, the
communities and their material history and, above all, their interpretation and
visibility in museums. The biographical study of objects has opened up
extremely productive and innovative areas of academic research, including the
work of Bill Brown on Thing Theory (2001); Chris Gosdens, Frances Larsons
and Alison Petch contribution (2007) in connection with the Pitt Rivers
Museums collections; and, of course, the essays included in the already classic
volume edited by Arjun Appadurai in 1986, and more particularly those on the
value of objects and their exchange. By narrowing its focus on the social life of
objects and their expressive effects, both in retroactive terms and in their
capacity to challenge human activity, the latest issue of MIDAS aims at
including transversal views across the several new materialisms while at the
same time forging critical links with more classic topics and subjects in the
history of Museology.

On the other hand, and through the incorporation of the intangible (historical,
emotional, spiritual) and relational aspects (ownership, belonging and identity)
of objects in museums, new avenues of inquiry are opened up which make it
possible to call into question educational approaches that represent the
museum as a heritage container. Heritage, therefore, is regarded as the
relationship capable of connecting cultural assets with the society they belong
to and the time that inherits such assets. Within this logical framework, objects
somehow become the carriers of an identity embodied in narratives,
biographies or artistic constructions that present themselves manifestations of
the bond formed between cultural assets and people. On the other hand, the
creation of such bonds does not simply take place inside the museums physical
space, but additionally and more and more in other spaces (including
virtual ones). All these relations constitute different manifestations of what is
actually the same approach: the generation of identity-based ties between
individuals or groups and heritage assets.

Another topic which we would like to include in the forthcoming issue of MIDAS
refers to the relationship between objects and learning in museums. It is often
stated that objects facilitate learning through the development of observation
and questioning skills, which in turn allows for emotional connections and for
complex ideas to become comprehensible. In this regard, we encourage
discussions on these concepts on the basis of research work inspired, for
example, by case studies.

The forthcoming issue of the MIDAS results from the current emphasis on
bringing together several perspectives (museological, curatorial, technical) on
the place of objects in museums all with a view to critically mapping this
domain. In short, the point is to stimulate reflection and present a number of
relevant examples that make it possible to develop a new take on the theory
concerning objects in museums as carriers of not just social, but also individual
meanings, thus enabling heritagization/identity-construction processes to play
an exploratory role from the standpoint of education. The topics and issues
proposed partially overlap and should allow for the confrontation of several
perspectives, both theoretical and methodological, as well as the production of
diversified materials.

Topics

Three major lines of analysis are preferably suggested:

1. Individual stories: narratives, biographies, artistic constructions around

musealized objects
Submitted articles may for example provide biographical narratives about
particular objects; texts discussing the methodology of object biographies
or introducing existing projects in connection with the life of objects; texts
exploring the relationships between the curatorial and auto / biography
on the basis of objects; the history of the museum (the museum as
artefact); and any other aspect of the topic that is duly justified.

2. The Internet and the social networks as spaces where identity-based

subject/object ties can be generated and shared
Through the Internet, museums have transformed the way in which they
interact with the public. Synergies are thus generated which promote a
greater autonomy in the visitors and create new spaces for interaction.
 What are the new forms of subject-object spaces, virtual museums and
social networks that have been brought into play? Does this kind of
relational extension of museums allow us to reflect on the kinds of
bonds that are being nurtured? Which are the new ways of story-telling
that have emerged and, along with them, the voices that are being
listened to in the new relational settings? Does the intimate, the personal,
the micro acquire here a more important dimension by multiplying and
building deeper connections with regard to heritage?

3. The privileged object-learning relation in museums

What is the added value of object-based learning? What approaches
are being currently used in museums and which evidences are being
presented? How can education experts help museums engage in a
discussion on object-based learning? How can museums use objects in a
more creative way? And why is it that such approaches differ from others
in terms of knowledge production? What are the impacts, the
opportunities and the challenges involved in using digital technology in
this context? What could be the impact, for example, of 3D printing of
objects aimed at object-based experience? Which technological powers
will be available to us in the future? Against this background, further
issues may still be explored.

References

Appadurai, Arjun, ed. 1986. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural
Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Brown, Bill. 2001. Thing Theory. Critical Inquiry 28, 1, Things (Autumn, 2001):
1-22.

Connor, Steven. 2012. Parafernalia: La Curiosa Historia de Nuestros Objetos

Cotidianos/Paraphernalia: The Curious Life of Magical Things. Barcelona:
Editorial Ariel.

Daston, Lorraine, ed. 2000. Biographies of Scientific Objects. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press.
De Waal, Edmund. 2012. A Lebre dos Olhos de mbar/The Hare with Amber
Eyes. 3. ed. Porto: Porto Editora/Sextante.

Gosden, Cris; Frances Larson, e Alison Petch. 2007. Knowing Things:

Exploring the Collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum, 1884-1945. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.

Kurlansky, Mark. 2000. O Bacalhau - Biografia do Peixe que Mudou o

Mundo/Cod A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World. Lisboa:
Terramar.

MacGregor, Neil. 2014. Uma Histria do Mundo em 100 objetos/A History of the
World in 100 Objects. Lisboa: Temas e Debates e Crculo de Leitores.

Turkle, Sherry, ed. 2007. Evocative Objects: Things We Think With. Cambridge:
MIT Press.

Brief CVs of guest editors:

Alice Semedo
Assistant professor (Faculty of Letters of the University of Porto). After finishing
a first degree in Archaeology at the University of Coimbra (Portugal) I pursued
my studies at the University of Leicester, UK (Museum Studies - M.A. 1991;
PhD 2003) where I presented a thesis on museum professional discourses (The
Professional Museumscape: Portuguese Poetics and Politics), supervised by
Susan Pearce. Among other functions, I have acted as director of studies for
the MA (2003-2013) and PhD (2013-) in Museology at the Faculty of Letters of
the University of Porto (Portugal) where I have been teaching since 1994.
Within the MA in Museology I teach different courses that reveal the diversity of
my teaching and research interests: museums and museology, the study and
management of collections, and finally, policies and practices of communication
in museums. I am particularly interested in the use of performative mediation
objects in museums. I have participated in different research projects, published
and organized conferences on topics relating to my research interests such as
museological narratives and discourses, professional museological identity and
contemporary missions for museums. I am also currently a researcher at
CITCEM and supervise PhD and MA thesis and dissertations within these
interests (MA Dissertations concluded: 30; PhD thesis concluded: 5).

Olaia Fontal
Graduate in Fine Arts at the University of the Basque Country, graduate in
History Art and PhD in Educational Sciences at University of Oviedo. She is a
university professor in Art Education at the University of Valladolid (Spain),
author of many books and articles indexed in the theme of heritage education.
She currently directs the Spanish Heritage Education Observatory (SHEO),
three R & D projects, and she is co-coordinator of the National Heritage
Education Plan in Spain.

Alex Ubaez
Degree in Geography and History and PhD in Education Sciences, currently is
full professor at the University of the Basque Country. Specialist in Heritage
Education, and professor of Research in Heritage Education at the University of
Huelva, co-directed four doctoral theses in this area. Since 2006, he has
participated uninterruptedly in research teams of R & D & I projects of MINECO.
Since 2015, is principal investigator in two projects. He is a member of the
Network of Excellence in Social Sciences Research - Red14, and has been the
author of the National Heritage Education Plan of Spain.